The Myth of High School Cliques

American teenage subcultures are featured in the majority of American teenage movies. As a result, teenage movies are loaded with stereotypes. We’ve seen American Pie, we’ve watched Mean Girls and most Europeans love to watch American TV productions. You name them. Shows and movies dealing with teenage troubles automatically are set in a world that is divided into social groups, the so-called cliques.

American High Schools evoke stereotypes in our heads, don’t they?

Please bear in mind that we are dealing with stereotypes in this entry. Reality can differ from this description.

As an introduction, here a picture and a scene describing situations in an American high school hallway…

Hiding Behind Other Students

Illustration bywardomatic · Me In 8th Grade

“I was a dweeb in 8th grade. A nerd. A geek. And guess what? I was in high school. Our high school went from 8th to 12th grade, so you can imagine me in the hallways, hiding behind other students so as not to get pounded by seniors who already had facial hair. It was nuts”

Want to read more about Wardomatic’s high school experience. He picked up this topic since the 20th reunion was coming up at that time. Interesting view. His blog post.

The Average Hallway

Cheerleader girls are meeting up on the sides of the hallway exchanging the latest gossip of this town and arguing over whose finger nails are more shiny after a 55 min polish during maths. Speaking of maths, a geek just can’t finish a indept discussion with the teacher on geometrics and gets nervous already since he needs to leave the classroom watching out for senior jocks picking on him.

With wet hair (he is so proud of) the soon-to-be-elected prom king comes up from behind and gives Stacy (the name suggests she is a cheerleader) surrouned by the in-crowd (again mostly cheerleaders) a long, obviously Frech kiss.

Usually passing teachers would starkly make both students attend the detention during the afternoon, but since the “offender” is playing in the school football team, he won’t say a thing.

“Check out my new Magic The Gathering cards case”, a geek proudly shows off in front of his best - and only - friend after the Comic Books Club meetup but bearing in mind that nobody should overhear their conversation. Clandestinely his friend says “Wow, cool, dude, wanna watch a 6 episodes of Star Wars at my place this weekend?” The answer is more than clear. “A Star Wars video Marathon, yez”

Look, they’re popular

American high schools seem to be all about popularity. The school popularity can be read from where one is sitting in the school cafeteria. Usually one sits next to people who share the same interests and depending on what clique one belongs to. In general students socialize with people who join the same clubs and and who entroll for the same extra curicular activities. Those homogene groups are formed according to their taste in music, fashion and world views.

During my A-levels my teacher and I came to the conclusion that the social pattern of a stereotpically American high school resembles a caste system. People of the same social group tend to hang and date each other. Dating someone of the different or even socially opposite “caste” (e.g.: jock making out with a nerd girl in the hallway) is considered as a taboo, is very unlikely to happen and would result in an extensive amount of gossip and social pressure. Therefore, this is not gonna happen!

The following scene, extracted from the OC, mocks at the popularity issues kids face when they are not flowing with the main-stream. A bossy cheerleader jumps at two girls (Olivia and Leah) because they need to get some things done for an upcoming party and Caitlin just doesn’t like the way that bossy chick talks to them.

Caitlin(as she heads off): Why do you let her talk to you like that?
Leah: She’s having a “pimps and hos” party for her sweet sixteen. It’s gonna be awesome.
Olivia: But if we don’t help out, we don’t go…
Caitlin: So don’t go. (she isn’t planning on going anyway)
Olivia: Yeah. That’d be social suicide. Everyone who’s anyone at this school will be there — no offense.

Social Security

A clique is aconstant free from personal turbulence.

In general cliques are all about social security during teenage years. Especially high expectations and social pressure drive students to seek shelter and establish a systematic social pattern as a consequence. There are various issues in a student’s personal life that he/she doesn’t have the time and the power to deal with like the own social status and how he/she is percieved from others. A teenager’s life can change overnight, however, a clique is a constant practically independent from personal turbulence.

The list of profiles below describes characters in an typically American high school. Attention, we are talking about stereotypes. Can’t point that out too often.

• Jocks Their muscles and good looking hair are their one way tickets for Planet Popular andPlanet Abercrombie and Fitch. Next to a high social ranking, school athletics enjoy several advantages with teachers, gradings and scholarships. They are the school most wanted - by other superfical teenage hormone driven girls, whereas the non-jocky boys hate jocks for taking away potential dates. Socially there is a lot of pressure on them. A lot of expectations to live up to like important games against competing teams of school they are in a rival with. In addition to the daily prestige giving prancing and earning “ohh he’s hot” looks in the hallways, pep rallies boost their confidence that is set far from low.
• Cheerleaders Cheerleaders all share the same title: Miss Perfect also known as Daddy’s Princess. Important topics like fingernail studios, the results of the latter and the most recent sale in the mall are discussed on a hourly basis on the school hallway or in little tiny letters with pink letters and hearts as dots of the “i” are sent to each other during class. In movies and (?) in reality (?) there is a bossy clique member (prom queen) that rules over the in-crowd girls.
  In fact, cheerleading is considered as a real sport and constitutes an important part in American sports. What else to do during the breaks of a game? Most commonly football enjoys “motivational” dances from young teenage girls. Pyramids, cheer songs and rhymes support the cheerleading attraction with fun raising intention.
• PrepLooks are essential to a Prep who engages in school activities and works for the college application’s sake in the student council. Originally this term derives from upper class students who attend a private university-prepatory (mostly boarding) school on the East coast. Sports other than horseback riding, fencing, polo or sailing are not relevant since they are perceived less elite. One word sum-up for a prep: Elite. After high school Preps are likely to attend an elite university (Ivy League) sponsored by parents. The look: a polo shirt (with the collar up), a pair of khaki shorts and boat shoes (Wikipedia: Preppy) - Google images for “preppy look“ to get an idea.
• Hipster As a hipster you are very liberal, socially established in a mediocre social position and you are into vintage clothing and oppose unfair working conditions in developing countries. Your parents may have enough money, but you don’t like the idea of showing this off with your car. Going green is the way to go. Berkley is the university for you (or some art school). Alcohol and smoking (all kinds of stuff) you do not oppose; what a nice way of putting it, right?
• Nerds Being smart means that the popular kids don’t particularly like you. You surround yourself with people that are also into mathsletic competitions who just can’t wait for the next science fair. Plus, comics and other geeky characteristics (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings & Co) define your everyday life. By the way, you’re fluent in both Elfish and Klingon. After science class you are severelydisappointedsince you just couldn’t get enough of the wonderful logic and systematic virtual world, but the end of class means that you have to survive in a hormone jungle on the hallway. You represent the lower end of the social pyramid in an American high school, excluded from after-school activities and bullied by seniors. Once you’re out of high school, you’ll end up in a huge Internet or Computer company (see Bill Gates) and all that changes. Fortunately. But high school most definitely isn’t fun for you.
• Band GeekMusic represents your passion and social life. You don’t mind wearing marching band uniforms (that you get mocked for) and your heart warms up whenever you get to rehearse for a school organized gig. Band camp is fun, and what else would you want to do during the hot summer months? Going to the beach? Nay.

Extra Curricular Activities

Just like our activities (non-school-organized) in your freetime (mostly in European countries) define our friends we feel comfortable to be surrounded with, extra curricular school organized classes or clubs are crucial when it comes to groups or cliques. Cheerleading, Chess Club, Comic Books Clubs, Football, Baseball, Soccer, Poets’ Club,…

Indexed.blogspot.com provides quite a funny index card dealing with the American high school cliques and working in an office in general. In both worlds you do what others want, but in the first case it’s peer pressure and in the second it’s called team playing.

The Years After Struggling in High School

I’ve been talking about the change from high school to college and university life, with both American and Austrian friends. Both of them confirmed, even though Austrian high schools aren’t definded by strictly divided cliques that much, that there is a different social structure. People graduating from high school realize that they now can get over the popularity issue and finally be themselves since college life provides and supports a more liberated way of life in so many ways. You no longer deal with annoying parents (parental independance, they can be millions of miles away), your freshman friends are open since they also left behind a life of security (that they know from high school) and are happy to get to know new faces and hear different kind of stories that vary from your experience during high school years. It’s the first opportunity for most people to get over the thought “What do others think of me” and start finding values that really matter to them on the run of the next (most likely) 4 years. Friends and learning what is true friendship. Going green because of a rising consciousness of environmental issues. Friends. Music. Going out.

College offers a diversity of groups

Finding the position as an individual rather than what clique you belong to is the challenging and notable component of college years. Whereas it would have been social suicide (social exclusion - suicide is slightly exaggerating) to talk to a nerdy or geeky person, people in college seem to just not care. College nevertheless also has cliques but their structure isn’t that strict and forces people to take their place within a small number of group. The diversity of groups allows nearly everyone to find their social position and these established groups facilitate the integration in the first few weeks. Among Freshmen there is this open-minded kind of thinking that enables easier connections with new people you don’t know.

The social structure of college and my experience of it I’ll deal with in another posts in the near future (preferably winter 2008).

What about Austrian High School Cliques?

Heterogene classes in Austria vs. Homogene cliques in the States

First off, the Austrian approach to educating horomone-driven teenagers is completely different from the US system. And exactly this point explains why the Austrian system isn’t really suffering from Cliquitis that much. We all have them, emos, punks, alternative kids, nerds, but they are all physically gathered in one class. Forming a class with all kinds of people requries you to put up with people of different interests and sooner or later you develop a common sense of community. You realize you can’t just ignore them, because even during breaks, you have to deal with them. After one class is finished you don’t usually flee out of the class room but you get out your lunch package and socialize with those who are around you. In the American system the cliques are the unifying social component whereas the Austrian heterogene class is the counterpart.

That in mind, we still see that there are sub groups (I avoid the nomenclature of subculuture here purposely) within an Austrian high school, but these are more diverse than the myth and partly the truth of American high school cliques. Of course, there are more popular kids than others and single students get excluded from groups in Austria too, so one cannot say that cliques are an US American phenomenon only.

Once you’re done with your A-levels in Austria, you will soon realize that you don’t have to necessarily put up with annoying, manipulative and controlling people of your class and then you sort of find out who you really want to hang out with. I also realized that in the year after high school.

Why am I picking up this topic now that I’m out of high school? Well, a certain degree of my visitors are searching for exactly this since there are several posts of my blog are scratching on the surface of American high school cliques.

A lot of people are looking up that information since most Austrian schools cover the topic The American School Systemand discussing the social pattern of an American high school is inevitable.

American high schools have been in a lot of discussion lately. School shootings and victims of bullying globally lead to a closer investigation on the social factors of the school system. If you want to understand school shootings this might be a guide to understand the social component of a school-shooter’s life that had him/her go insane and lose control, even though some parts of this entry are meant to be understood in a sarcastic fashion.

Of course, I’m not saying that school shootings are only caused by social pressure and bullying or ignorance, but numerous psychologists confirmed that the social life must have a crucial impact.

What does reality look like? What subculture would you assign for yourself? What promotes these globally spread clichés?

Are there any groups or subcultures that you miss in the list above?

Once you’re done with high school, does life and the its social component change indeed immediately?